This fact of having Russian DNA in my bloodline makes me want to go and see where our families come from inside of Russia.I grew up in the great state of Wyoming, I am 50, a widower, a U.S. Navy veteran, a veteran law enforcement officer, with degrees in administration of justice, political science, psychology, international studies, awards and certifications from FEMA, Special Response Team, Special Weapons And Tactics, patrol rifle marksmanship awards, a diploma in the history of naval warfare from the U.S. Great article.Thank you for writing this post. (they were/are for me). We do notice mistakes and, in … Here are some of the reasons why Russian is difficult: 1. I've been studying Russian for about six months and I can't think of many words I know! And with the right program, you’ll be able to start having conversations right from the bat.Don’t expect to be perfectly fluent in a couple of months. Have Russian extremely positive and encouraging themselves study hard works here in Russia;they have negative spoken thoughts about Russian! While it is true that Russians can be a little rough around the edges at times, I find that once you break through this hardened exterior they are warm, welcoming, and incredibly hospitable. A couple of centuries ago the Brits took a lot of French words in their vocabulary and many of these words remain there these day. And before you’ll know it, you’ll be surprising yourself (and everyone around you) with how well you’re speaking Russian!P.S. "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." going on foot, flying, going by some form of transport, climbing, etc. It is really encouraging :) Your pronunciation advice has helped me a lot. Then I asked my professor to explain мягкий знак and твердый знак to me. these are the things every beginner russian student (native english speaking) should be introduced to, to make the process easier...In many parts of the non-English speaking world, people strive to learn English not just for career but so that they can adapt to us. Russian is difficult in terms of grammar but not impossible for learning. All they do is signify whether or not the consonant before them is pronounced As long as your learning material comes with clear audio so you can hear exactly how words are pronounced then that’s all you need to focus on. I’m Dutch from origin, but English and Dutch are from the same language family, so the experience is the same.Spanish is an easy language for English speakers. As you read above, Russian is a difficult language to learn. Otherwise, what are you doing here? You're not wrong, of course, as I know you definitely speak Russian! Instead, we’re going to focus on possible difficulties some people may face personally.
And sure, if you’ve never had contact with grammatical cases before, they can be a bit daunting. This usually frightens a lot of English-speakers simply because English has mostly lost its cases. It also just so happens that Russia is filled with confusing customs, traditions, and superstitions that can downright befuddle a Westerner. I think we learn in completely different ways, though.Case in point: to learn the alphabet, I just brute-force memorized it. […]I am very serious about learning to speak, read, and write the Russian language. Same with cases: I did a bunch of declension exercises until I developed an intuitive feel for it and then practiced speaking with people.These differences don't matter, though, because I think we both can agree on one thing. It’s not (or at least doesn’t have to be) a near-impossible undertaking.I kept hearing about how difficult Russian is to learn up until that point but my experience there said something very different.Within 5 months I was communicating comfortably in Russian, befriending many new people and lived for several more months in Italy with my new Russian girlfriend at the time (who could only speak Russian).The Foreign Service Institute (FSI for short) places Russian into one its highest categories in terms of its relative difficulty for native English speakers (in other words one of the most challenging major languages).Keep convincing yourself that Russian is insanely difficult and it To the unititiated, Russian looks pretty intimidating yet also oddly familiar.You see a bunch of letters that look just like regular old English letters (plus tweaked or inverted English letters) but in actual fact many of them represent something completely different.Cyrillic is very similar to (and mostly derived from) Greek which shares a common origin with our own alphabet.